A silent witness
Accordingly he made the promises as I had suggested, we offered up
special prayers to the saint, and, with the permission of the
surgeons, I attached the reliquary to the dressings of the wound,
praying that it should avail to draw out the bullet.”
“And did it?” asked Marchmont in a tone which evidently did not escape
the observant Jesuit, for that nimble-witted gentleman turned sharply
on the lawyer and replied with severe emphasis:
“No, sir, it did not. And why? Because there was no need. The very
next day after the reliquary was applied, when the dressings were
changed, a small shred of filthy cloth came out of the wound. _That_
was the cause of the trouble, not the clean metal bullet. The saint,
you see, sir, knew better than the surgeon.”
“Evidently,” said Marchmont, glancing quickly at me, and the
expression that I caught in the eye of that elderly heathen suggested
that he had actually contemplated a wink and then thought better of
it.
“As soon as the piece of cloth was out of the wound,” Father
Humperdinck resumed, “all the trouble ceased. The fever abated, the
wound healed, and very soon Vitalis was able to get about, none the
worse for his mishap.
“It was natural that he should be grateful to the saint who had saved
his life, for though we look forward to the hereafter, we do not wish
to die. Also was it natural that he should feel a devotion to the holy
relic which had been the appointed instrument of his recovery. He did,
and to gratify him, I obtained the Father General’s permission to
bestow it on him, which gave him great joy, and thenceforth he always
carried the reliquary on his person.”
“I hope he kept his promise to the saint,” said Marchmont.
“He did; faithfully, and, indeed, handsomely. No sooner was he
recovered of his wound than he proposed to me the founding of a new
society of brothers of charity to attend the sick and wounded. I
consulted with the Father General of my Society--the Society of
Jesus--and received his sanction to act as director of the new society
or fraternity which was to be affiliated to the Society of Jesus under
the title of ‘The Poor Brothers of Saint Joseph of Aramithea.’”
“Why not Saint Vincent de Paul?” asked Marchmont.
“Because there was already a society named after that saint, and
because Saint Joseph was a man of eminent charity. But I shall not
weary you with a history of our society. It was founded and blessed by
His Holiness, the Pope, it prospered, and it still prospers to the
glory of God and to the benefit and relief of the sick, the poor, and
the suffering. At first Vitalis paid all the costs, and he has been a
generous benefactor ever since.”
“This is all extremely interesting,” said Marchmont, “but--you will
excuse my asking--has it any bearing on your friend’s disappearance?”
“Yes, sir, it has,” replied Father Humperdinck, “as you shall berceive
ven I my narradive gondinue.”
Mr. Marchmont bowed, and Father Humperdinck, quite undisturbed by the
interruption, “gondinued his narradive.”
“Our first house was established in Belgium, near Brussels, and
Vitalis came to live with us in community. He did not regularly join
the society or take any vows, but he lived with us as one of ourselves
and wore the habit of a lay brother when in the house and the dress of
one when he went abroad. This he has continued to do ever since.
Though bound by no vows, he has lived the life of a professed
religious by choice, occupying an ordinary cell for sleeping and
taking his meals at the refectory table. But not always. From time to
time he has taken little holidays to travel about and mix with the
outer world. Sometimes he would come to England to visit his
relatives, and sometimes he would spend a few weeks in one of the
great cities of the Continent, looking over the museums and
picture-galleries. He was greatly interested in art and liked to
frequent the society of painters and sculptors, of whom he knew
several; and one, in particular--an English painter named Burton,
whose acquaintance he made quite recently--he seemed very much
attached to, for he stayed with him at Bruges for more than a month.
“When he came back from Bruges, he told me that he purposed going to
England to see his relatives and to make certain arrangements with his
lawyers for securing a part of his property to our Society. I had
often urged him to do this, but, hitherto, he had retained complete
control of his property and only paid the expenses of the Society as
they occurred. He was most generous, but, of course, this was a bad
arrangement, because, in the event of his death, we should have been
left without the support that he had promised. It seemed that while he
was at Bruges he had discussed this matter with Mr. Burton, who was a
Catholic, and that the Englishman also had advised him to make a
permanent provision for the Society. It seemed that he had decided to
divide his property between our community and a cousin of his who
lives in England, a project of which I strongly approved. After
staying with us for a month or two, he left for England with the
purpose of making this arrangement. That was in the middle of last
September, and I have not seen him since.”
“Did he complete the arrangements that he had mentioned?” Thorndyke
asked.
“No, he did not. He made certain arrangements as to his property, but
they were very different ones from those he had proposed. But we shall
come to that presently. Let me finish my story.
“A few days after Vitalis left us, our oldest lay brother was taken
very seriously ill. I wrote to Vitalis, who was deeply attached to
Brother Bartholomew, telling him of this, and, as I did not know where
he was staying, I sent the letter to his cousin’s house at Hampstead.
He replied, on the eighteenth of September, that he should return
immediately. He said that he was then booking his luggage and paying
his hotel bill; that he had to see his cousin again, but that he would
try to come by the night train, or if he missed that, he would sleep
at the station hotel and start as early as possible on the following
day, the nineteenth. That was the last I ever heard from him. He never
came and has never communicated with me since.”
“You have made enquiries, of course?” said Thorndyke.
“Yes. When he did not come, I wrote to his lawyer, Mr. Wyndhurst, whom
I knew slightly. But Mr. Wyndhurst was dead, and my letter was
answered by Mr. Marchmont. From him I learned that Vitalis had called
on him on the morning of the nineteenth and made certain arrangements
of which he, perhaps, will tell you. Mr. Marchmont ascertained that,
on the same day, Vitalis’s luggage was taken from the cloak room in
time to catch the boat train. I have made inquiries and find that he
arrived at Calais, and I have succeeded in tracing him to Paris, but
there I have lost him. Where he is now I am unable to discover.
“And now, before I finish my story, you had better hear what Mr.
Marchmont has to tell. He has been very close with me, but you are a
lawyer and perhaps know better how to deal with lawyers.”
Thorndyke glanced enquiringly at the solicitor, who, in his turn,
looked dubiously at the end of his waning cigar.
“The fact is,” said he, “I am in a rather difficult position. Mr.
Reinhardt has employed me as his solicitor, and I don’t quite see my
way to discussing his private affairs without his authority.”
“That is a perfectly correct attitude,” said Thorndyke, “and yet I am
going to urge you to tell us what passed at your interview with your
client. I can’t go into particulars at present, but I will ask you to
take it from me that there are sound reasons why you should; and I
will undertake to hold you immune from any blame for having done so.”
Marchmont looked sharply and with evidently awakened interest at
Thorndyke.
“I think I know what that means,” he said, “and I will take you at
your word, having learned by experience what your word is worth. But
before describing the interview, I had better let you know how
Reinhardt had previously disposed of his property.
“About twelve years ago he got Wyndhurst to draft a will for him by
which a life interest in the entire property was vested in his cousin,
a Miss Augusta Vyne, with reversion to her niece, Sylvia Vyne, the
only child of his cousin Robert. This will was duly executed in our
office.
“After that our firm had, until quite recently, no special business to
transact for Mr. Reinhardt beyond the management of his investments.
The whole of his property--which was all personal--was in our hands to
invest, and our relations with him were confined to the transfer of
sums of money to his bank when we received instructions from him to
effect such transfer. He never called at the office, and latterly
there has been no one there who knew him excepting Wyndhurst himself
and the clerk, Bell.
“The next development occurred last September. On the seventeenth I
received a letter from him, written at Miss Vyne’s house at Hampstead,
saying that he had been discussing his affairs with her and that he
should like to call on me and make some slight alterations in the
disposal of the property. I replied on the eighteenth, addressing my
letter to him at Miss Vyne’s house, making an appointment for eleven
o’clock on the morning of the nineteenth. He kept the appointment
punctually, and we had a short interview, at which he explained the
new arrangements which he wished to make.
“He began by saying that he had found it somewhat inconvenient,
living, as he did, on the Continent, to have his account at an English
Bank. He proposed, therefore, to transfer it to a private bank at
Paris, conducted by a certain M. Desiré, or rather to open an account
there, for he did not suggest closing his account at his English
bank.”
“Do you know anything about this M. Desiré?” asked Thorndyke.
“I did not, but I have since ascertained that he is a person of
credit--quite a substantial man in fact--and that his business is
chiefly that of private banker and agent to the officers of the army.
“Well, Mr. Reinhardt went on to say that he had become rather tired of
the monotonous life of a lay brother--which he, after all, was
not--and wished for a little freedom and change. Accordingly he
intended to travel for a time--which was his reason for employing M.
Desiré--and did not propose, necessarily, to keep anyone informed of
his whereabouts. He was a rich man and he had decided to get some
advantage from his wealth, which really did not seem to me at all an
unreasonable decision. He added that he had no intention of
withdrawing his support from the Society of the Poor Brothers; he
merely intended to dissociate himself, personally, from it, and he
suggested that any occasions that might arise for pecuniary assistance
should be addressed to him under cover of M. Desiré.
“Finally, he desired me to transfer one thousand pounds stock to his
new agent seven days from the date of our interview, and gave me an
authority in writing to that effect in which he instructed me to
accept M. Desiré’s receipt as a valid discharge.”
“And you did so?” asked Thorndyke.
“Certainly I did. And I hold M. Desiré’s receipt for the amount.”
“Did you think it necessary to raise the question of your client’s
identity, seeing that no one in the office knew him personally?”
“No, I did not. The question did not arise. There could not possibly
be any doubt on the subject. He was an old client of the firm, and our
correspondence had been carried on under cover of his cousin, Miss
Vyne, who had known him all his life. You remember that I wrote to him
at Miss Vyne’s address, making the appointment for the interview.”
“And what happened next?”
“The next development was a letter from Father Humperdinck asking if I